and it affected recycling center because we're in a city and county. for instance the convenience zone was expanded to a mile in one instance. >> i have maybe a recommendation for the item commissioner dooley, instead of "consideration," but to request that the department of environment have plans in place for -- a plan in place for existing supermarkets around the convenience zone or creating a recycle center or recycling on-site, with a priority of working with those supermarkets that currently have an exempt status and may be losing it. this is separate from for new

and remodeled supermarkets, a recommendation is that that discussion and plan will be triggered through the entitlement process. but for existing supermarkets where they are not going to go through the entitlement process, i think, at the committee meeting, as you had noted, there is the interest to start working with those supermarkets to start putting a plan in place. does that make sense? >> yes. actually one of the difficulties with the hank situation, because it's been unfolding over many years and i have been in touch with the whole foods and andronickos and they were never really motivated as [hro-pbgs/] as along as the center was there to do anything. they were glad not to have a recycling center on their parking lot, but they weren't ready to go to meetings and space. those issues just weren't

happening. >> i heard that commissioner o'brien was a little uncomfortable mandating because there will be -- there might -- the recycling center at market street as the housing gets developed and right now there, there will be pressures on it as well. >> i have a question, if there is an existing supermarket site right now, that has recycling. can they at any time just abandon that and pay the fee? that is sort of my concern how that works? >> yes. the answer is yes. i mean, the state law does not

have enough teeth to be able to stop it. it happens, and there is notification that goes out from state to that supermarket or to the surrounding stores to do something about it. it's very -- it's just not strong teeth in it. it's more optional. >> that is kind of where my concern is. that if we're seeing a dwindling amount of places to recycle and some of those are supermarkets, is that some kind of language we can put in to discourage or whatever, mandate that people that have it right now cannot abandon that? >> >> do you know how many there are? >> i don't. >> the case of one that existed yesterday and doesn't today is because the new owners didn't have to deal with it.

show up on their radar. are there some that are operating and then decide not to operate? >> there are instance where's the recycling center just gets closed usually because there is complaints from a neighbor or something like that. we actually did just hear on friday from next cycle which operates about nine of the centers in the city that they received word from safeway, that in the excelsior, at mission street was asked to close because they found it to be difficult. and actually this is at a very early stage and a lot of negotiations happen. just because they say that, doesn't mean it's going to happen, but it's an example of a kind of unilateral decision on the store to attempt to do

that. >> right. >> correct. >> i don't know where we want to place ourselves on that part of the issue, but i think it's something that we should think about. >> so i think since we're not really working to pass something out today. >> right. >> i think what we can do is sort of take the intent of both commissioner dooley and commissioner o'brien and work on some for the -- something for the final policy? >> yes. >> it was currently written a conditional use authorization or public hearing was required prior to the center. so if a conditional use was required because they could close that, would that address your concern? >> do they require a

conditional use? >> that is something that we could explore before the next outreach committee. >> that is good direction on the intent. >> commissioner yee riley? >> i have a question. now when we asked a recycling center to close, do we have any plan to meet the need of that community? >> i have been working with both with existing supermarkets, in discussions with them and with other -- basically it's looking for land. or looking for a parking lot or vacant space, in the case of the hank center, to try to find some locations for either a temporary or a mobile or a permanent site. this is the first situation like this that we have faced where we had sort of enough warning to get something going.

like for instance, at the california and hyde situation we didn't really know what was happening and it stalled and started up again. so the short answer is that we don't have a process in place for that. we activated one in this case. >> i think it would help if we had a process in place. that way on the other hand we need a recycling center and on the other hand we want to close them. >> there is a bit of schizophrenia there. >> the $100, who sets that limit is that state or city? >> that was set in the original law passed in the 1980's? >> do we have any flexibility? >> no, i'm pretu sure that is established in statute, but it could be changed. >> i am thinking that instead of paying $100, we could base on the sales volume of the size of their business. >> right. i think if you started to change it, that the oppositions would be quite broad.

for instance the supermarket would pay a different rate than the beverage dealers, based on volume, something like that. >> thank you. >> do you want to take this to committee? >> i would like to read through them and we can go through them rear view relatively quickly and see if any other recommendations that might have. >> the sbc encourages the department of the environment to pursue mobile redemption sisters, mobile redemption centers rotating basis could be a potential solution for the coming up next the city should resalute the geographic distribution of centers with the goal of expending them to parts of city underserve. additionally the geography of san francisco and density should provide policy rationale to increase the size of convenience zones in the city of san francisco. the sbc asks that the department of environment in

coordination with others work with retailers so seek exemptions for small businesses. >> so can we just stop right here for the local? are there any comments, suggestions or modifications. >> we're is good. >> you have been extensive background, but the fee of $500 should be considered and the sbc encountryings courages the department of environment to bring that. >> we should do a little more investigation of the tiers of how much people would have to pay. >> i think that is a really good idea.

>> right, because i definitely hear commissioner ortiz-cartagena's concern that we could raise the fee, but rest of the policy doesn't change. >> right. >> and we have just increased a situation for our small businesses. i have one other sort of question for you, is would the commission want to have a consideration for that we work at the state late to exempt our small businesses from the crv policy all together? >> yes. >> yes. >> so then perhaps this is another direction? >> or maybe even a population density matrix. i'm from san francisco and that is all i know and maybe in

stockton there needs to be that center. >> finally under the direction of the department of the environment the implementation of mobile recycling programs may require state legislation to be brought forward. the sbc supports the introduction of any next state legislation to accomplish the implementation of a mobile re[sao-eublt/]ing program. >> i like that one a lot. >> we will finalize this with the detailed findings for the january 14th meeting. >> great. thank you. >> thank you commissioners. >> commissioners, just in your binders is something additional

meeting you may find interesting leading up to the next meeting. there is some information on just the bottle bill in general along with the exemption process, so just some food for thought for your next meeting. >> i'm from michigan and i'm used to the dime and you have a party at your house and collect the recyclables. that is how i made it for college. >> there is a value. >> next item, please. >> you are saying if you drink enough, you can afford breakfast? >> [ laughter ] >> in college, we used to have parties and everybody had to leave their bottles worth a dime in michigan. if you have a case of beer, it's $2.40 and we had several and we would go to the grocery

store and get $20 for breakfast. >> if you could get up in the morning [ laughter ] >> commissioners item 5 discussion on sunday park meter scheduled to take effect january 6th, 2013. director, did you want me to give the summary? >> yes, please lead us through this. >> commissioners, i will just summarize, a pretty brief, but informative faq in your package and for members of public online is a web link for sunday meter information. as of january 6th, 2013 all sunday parking meters will be enforced on sunday from noon to 6:00 p.m. with four-hour time limits and note that fisherman's wharf and other areas have different times. parking has been traditional free on sundays since meters were installed in the '40s and

noted that most businesss were closed on sundays. operating meters on sunday is common many other cities and the mta points out los angeles, portland, toronto, chicago, tampa as some large cities that have sunday meter parking polices. the rationale for the sunday meter parking policy includes reduced frustration for all motorists. more successful neighborhood commercial district, which rely on parking available for customers. reduces congestion and all revenue returned to to mta. there is a question about how the meters operate if you have to run out there at noon to feed the meter and the answer is that the meters will accept pre-payment beginning at 4:00 a.m. and so you can make a pre-payment and then starting at noon, the payment that you make will take effect.

and then there is the parking meter rates will be the sames on sunday. i included in your binders, there is -- i will put it on the overhead -- -- the sfmta is undertaking a public outreach program providing the form that i just put on the overhead. they are going to be printing tens of thousands of those.

and have them available for local businesses to hand out to customers. there is also very similar design for 11x17 posters along with cash register-type signage that they can put up. in addition, they are going to do media outreach, radio outreach. they are going to be putting bus ads out. and they are going to be doing additional newspaper and other means to get the word out. >> commissioner comments? >> i attended the meeting that we had with the sfmta about the metering changes. the om only comment that i have to make and i totally understand why four-hour meters if you are going to a woreship service, but in the business corridors, frankly allowing people to park for four hours

is not going to encourage turnover, which is what they are saying that they want. on a sunday most businesses are open 12-5, which is almost the entire business day. i don't know if there is any way to resolve that, but i think there is kind of a conflict with that, just because if you want people to go in and out and turnover and go shopping, if they are going to park for four hours, they weren't turning over. even the worship people feel four hours is not long enough and have service and meals and lots of other things that take them virtual will you through the day. i'm curious what other commissioners' thoughts are on that? >> well, i understand why they do it, like on clement street and some area where's

they need the turnover, i agree with you on the hours. personally i'm not a big fan of the sundays. in my neighborhood, castro and upper market the merchants are not in favor, but you talk to the clement merchants and geary street merchants they are for it, because they are open longer hours, especially the restaurants. it is four hours? >> four hours. dinner time -- >> then you don't have to pay after that. >> i know. >> i understand why the city is doing it. i didn't know we had four-hour meters. the only one that i know of two -hours is in the castro

district. >> i just think it would have been better to possibly make them two-hours. it just seems like that is a long time to have someone at that meter, if you want turnover. >> commissioners, i did fail to mention as part of the transition to sunday meters, they are also removing all the one-hour meters and changing those times to two-hours. and all current meters that have the ability to have two hours one day and four hours on a sunday for instance. >> okay. >> they are taking credit cards? >> credit cards through the phone and in terms of the new meters where you can actually pay by credit card they are currently working on transitioning out the old meters and eventually the goal over the next 2-3 years, all

meters would have credit card capabilities. >> okay. >> any other commissioner comments? do we have public comment on item no. 5? seeing none, public comment is closed on sunday meter parking. any other commissioner comments? >> thank you, chris. >> i will address it in my director's report. >> next item. >> commissioners all right 6, director's report update and report on the office of small business and small business assistance center, update on the department programs and updates on legislative matters and make announcements regarding small business activities. >> commisioners, so i don't think that i mentioned at our last commission meeting, but we have launched an enterprise zone web application. so this is one step that we're taking in terms of making technology

available for businesses to utilize. so this will help expedite the processing of businesses enterprise tax forms for their employee tax credits. so the processing and administration and it should be making it easier for businesses in terms of even filling out their own forms. so this is now live, and available, and it's on the oewd website, when you go to the tax credit information on their oewd website. license 123, we're still targeting for our mid-january site to go live. we're still on track for that. >> great. >> and we should have for you -- we'll have a presentation for you at the january meeting. the small business net payroll

exclusion, chrised forwarded you the press release that the tax and treasurer put out about it. there is no new form, but deals with it on the tax filing form. and and i think it should be pretty easy. small business saturday was a great success. san francisco did very well in terms of number of businesses participating, but we had a mayoral proclamation. the board of supervisors did a resolution. we had the mayor tweeting. there is also an official letter from the white house to acknowledge small business saturday, and hopefully you saw president obama out shopping with his family. and he did personal tweeting. so that was great and very exciting. >> i would like to comment and i want to thank regina, you and

everybody in your office for promoting small business saturday. i was out in some of the neighbors and they were very pleased how your office was out there helping promote this. and i know several businesses said that, especially in the noe valley and upper market and costa, everybody is downtown shopping and that saturday they had a definite increase in business. 24th street i was down there and talking to some folks down there and they were saying that was one of their best after-thanksgiving distal saturday and i know on castro it was the same. so thank you to you and your office for promoting it. >> you are welcome. so this year we worked with women impacting public policy and

wipp and sf travel came on and the chamber of commerce. so we want to make it bigger for next year. so we're starting our planning meeting in january. so we're going to be coming together. so we'll be a little more ahead of the curve and be able to get more activity out for small business saturday. small business week is well underway. and again, it's may 13th through the 18th. we have already sent out safety save the dates to the merchant organizations and letting them know that save the dates to the merchant organizations and i attended the council of district merchant meeting and our office will still continue to do. and then we have started to organize the events for that

week. it looks like we might be leaning towards having our awards ceremony thursday morning. >> thursday morning. >> thursday morning. and i will let you speak to the theme and all of that, because commissioner adams as our co-chair will be providing the information in his vice president's report. and then all of these weeks are going by so fast. we did as part of the invest in neighborhoods program launch the ada outreach. it's a pilot program that is associated with our invest in neighborhoods program. the funds were -- we're doing a pilot project in district 4. and the four areas -- well, district 4 and then we will be adding geary street in district

1, but we're first starting out in the three areas of district 4. so any business that is in that area that is interested in having an assessment done, we will be able -- we have the funds to provide a free assessment. and if there is work to be done, then they can apply for a grant and they may be able to qualify for a grant to do the work. so there are details here about that. so form is -- the applications are available. if a business residents between noriega, irving street and terrville, et cetera, so

asian neighborhood design is managing the program. and doing the inspections and helping with the outreach to the businesses. we did have a press conference with the mayor to announce this and it was very nice. supervisor carmen chu after the press conference went and walked along the corridor to start to inform the businesses. are there any questions about that? >> how was the merchants in that area reacting to that? were they receptive? >> yes. we have one business who has filed an application. but others, the asian neighborhood design did an assessment right there on-site. so some of them it was just a few things, like clearing off the counter, that you have your ada counter built and just clearing it off.

or removing the garbage can, or changing the table. so they were able do some on-site assessments that were very simple and really readily achievable things that a business can do. so that was very well received. >> that is great. thanks >> and then just a few updates. the other piece of legislation that is before the commission, the polk street alcohol and i

tobacco paraphernalia we'll hear in january. we just had the update for the sunday parking meters and a reminder that we have minimal staffing for the week of december 24-28th and the office is not available for walk-in, but we'll schedule appointments and take phone calls and do email. and then monday the 17th is the council district merchant's holiday party and you should have received an invitation for that. so that concludes my report. unless have you any questions? >> any questions? great job, regina, thank you. next item. >> commissioners item 7, discussion